


Black Books

by WhenIFindLoveAgain



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Attempted Seduction, Background Relationships, British Comedy, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon Sexuality, Character Study, Comedy, Complicated Relationships, Depression, Disasters, Dysfunctional Relationships, Eventual Relationships, F/M, Healthy Relationships, Implied Relationships, M/M, Open Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Romantic Comedy, Seduction, Sensuality, Sexuality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23099317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenIFindLoveAgain/pseuds/WhenIFindLoveAgain
Summary: A work in which Minghao gives a little black book full of all the things that go on in Seventeen, and the day to day life when Jihoon keeps writing songs in a break that are good for anyone else but not for Seventeen, Wonwoo is depressed, Joshua is rowing with Jeonghan, Chan wants to get into a punch-up with their manager and Mingyu is on the verge of chucking a fairly heavy ceramic dish at anyone's head.And then it all turns around with wonderous consequences. A new album is launched, five couples fall in love, Jun gets a sexual obsession with Minghao, Jisoo loses a bet that then changes how the world and carats perceive him, Jeonghan gets tied up for Jisoos sake, and Wonwoo and Vernon rescue Jihoon from severe album writers block
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon, Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Jeon Wonwoo, Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan, Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu, Jeon Wonwoo/Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi, Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Kudos: 20





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Right, new work! Again! In this one it's set within I suppose you could say a realistic setting in what we know as the realism of SEVENTEEN. A few key concepts are explored - or to be explored - in this work; Depression, Anxiety, relationships, messing about, making music and making albums, living up to cultural and industry expectations, and within all of this still been able to be yourself. There is original songs in here that I have written, all bar from one - one of the first featured - which is a song by Australian rock band called Gang of Youths. The song is called Magnolia, and the lead singer of the band - I believe it is - wrote it about his wife. I'm not quite sure though. Probably will have to check it. Anyway, I hope you like it, and you find something within this that cane make you laugh and smile and perhaps feel alright about certain aspects you may share. Leave comments and kudos if you wish, trust me, I would be so delighted to receive them

Minghao kept a book of things that went on. And he kept for the purpose of prospoerity. Or so it might be thought. Sometimes he used it as a articulate form of blackmail or otherwise humiliation; bring up a certain incidence. But, really, it was his way of getting it out of his system so he didn't feel prone to do something horrible out of frustration and suffocation by the other members. 

  
And what was today's list?

  
Minghao wrote down,

  
⦁ Jisoo and Jeonghan are still fighting for the fifth day in a row

  
⦁ Chan threatened to put Jun's toothbrush in the toilet and then put it back for him to use

  
⦁ Wonwoo's depressed and mute again

  
⦁ Soonyoung's hyperactive because something's gone wrong with Jihoon (don't know what exactly but it's most likely that Jihoon has told him to back off and Soonyoung's had his heart broken)

  
Minghao paused for a few moments, resting his head in his hand, his elbow against the kitchen table.

  
⦁ Wonwoo's depression is so bad that he isn't talking at all. No sound out of him in fourteen days

  
⦁ Someone cried; not sure who it was, but I think it was Seungcheol

  
⦁ Vernon introduced Seungkwan to his sister and then Vernon nearly hit him when he asked why Mrs Chwe was "bald". Was she a bhuddist hippy or did she have cancer?

  
⦁ Joshua doesn't really get on with his Dad; never makes a mention about him and when I asked he dropped a mug and broke it

  
⦁ Chan threatened to kill the manager. They'll get into a punch-up by the end of the week

  
Minghao sighed.

  
⦁ And KPOP is one giant pose and it's making everyone feel like shit

  
⦁ And Jisoo is in a bad mood because he's not getting any sex

  
Minghao couldn't help smiling at that. But all of a sudden, he felt something within deflate. A whole heap of reasons for all the things that were happening occured to him in the back of his head. And he couldn't help not thinking about it. Minghao tried to convince himself to not write it down. Because if he did write it down, it wouldn't nessecarily make it "real" even though it was "real"...it was ink on paper. He couldn't erase it. And he couldn't just scrawl over it either without it being obvious. Not that anyone bar him was going to look. No on knew he had that little black book full of all its...venom.

  
Minghao winced internally. Because that's all it was, really. Venom. All the bad stuff written down inside. But there was good stuff too. Happy stuff, funny stuff...sexual stuff.

Comfortable stuff.

  
It wasn't like writing it down made it more prevalent in anyone's memory, it was just...his own little thing.

  
Black books. All they were. Black books.

  
Minghao had just hidden it away in his bedroom when he heard Chan's voice pipe up in a whisper, and the youngest member of Seventeen was down the other end of the hallway, beckoning to him. "Come and see this, hyung." Chan grinned, and to Minghao it looked more than slightly wicked. Chan didn't usually stir the shit-pot, and he was well known to occasionally supply the ingriedants. They crept just outside to the entrance of the sitting room, and Minghao rolled his eyes, just evading the urge to hit Chan. Vernon was dead asleep on the couch with his head tilted back at a awkward angle, his mouth hanging open and snoring with the same gravity as a Russian freight train. But someone had plaited his hair into very tiny little sections - upwards of what looked like thirty to begin with. 

  
"Did you do this?" Minghao whispered, jabbing a finger in Chan's direction. Chan grinned broadly and shook his head.

  
"Well if he - we - can get them undone, he's either...he'll look like he's been electrocuted or we won't be able to get them undone and we'll have to cut them off and have chrome-dome Vernon." Minghao responded. Chan put his hands into the pockets of his cords and shrugged indifferently.

  
Leaving Chan to his own devices, Minghao went down the hallway and found Jihoon in his studio, staring blankly at a laptop screen. "Jihoon?" Minghao asked, taking a seat on his desk after shutting the studio door behind him. Jihoon looked at him.

  
"I can't -" Jihoon broke off and sighed. He rubbed his eyes with one hand and yawned before blinking owlishly. "I keep writing song lyrics that would suit any other band bar fucking us."

  
"Tell me?" Minghao asked. Jihoon gave him a long stare, before crossing his hands over his stomach with his elbows on the arms of his swivel chair; he reclined back in it a little, and looked at the ceiling, briefly closing his eyes.

  
_"Quit honking your horns_

  
_There's five other lanes and I am king of them all_

_And faster than light_

  
_With my fists in the air_

  
_If my body's alive_

  
_The my soul's unaware in braving the last of this terrible wine_

  
_I've savoured the last and I've kissed it goodbye -"_

  
Minghao chuckled. He couldn't help it. One of Jihoon's eyes came open, and a happier, more relaxed expression came over the small man's face. _"There's not kind of right away to do what I do -"_ Jihoon continued. _"But I am king of the earth with impossible blood on this third of June_

  
_Hold on officer, 'cause I know that I'm a danger to myself_

  
_And it shows_

_'Cause I'm on the other side of the law."_

  
Jihoon stopped singing. He and Minghao both sat in silence for a few moments, and thought to themselves quietly.

  
"There's a chorus for that, right?" Minghao asked Jihoon, who nodded. Jihoon was right. That wasn't a Seventeen song; there was no way they'd publish it without some sort of international incident - reaction - to it, anyhow.

  
"I've even got a idea for the film clip." Jihoon said, stroking his chin. "Have Mingyu dancing up a street like an idiot -"

  
Minghao laughed. "That sounds good."

  
"Just grooving, y'know? And have it in black and white. And we'll make out that we're all singing it to one woman that's like a wife or a partner or something." Jihoon paused, and then realized he had to explain it a bit more. "I wanted to call the song Jangmi or Nari or something like that; old-world, sort of native, but cool. The song's about a woman and what we feel for women and what we feel as guys, that kind of thing."

  
Minghao nodded, understanding. "Where is everyone?" He asked. Jihoon shrugged. "Where's Wonwoo?"

  
Jihoon shook his head. "Most depressed people stay in their houses, curled up in bed or on the couch or something." He said lowly. "Wonwoo does everything he can to get out."  
"What time did he come home last night?"

  
"Seventeen minutes past one in the morning." Jihoon said.

  
"Anyone say anything?" Minghao quipped. Jihoon shook his head.

  
"I thought Jisoo might but he hasn't made a comment."

  
"What about Cheol?" Minghao felt a warning inside him to not push it any further after that remark. Jihoon shrugged. Minghao regretted making him uncomfortable.

  
"Trying to pretend it isn't happening." Jihoon mumbled.

  
"What's the other thing you were writing?" Minghao asked. There was always more than one with Jihoon. The question should more likely be, "What's one of the fifteen you're currently working on?"

  
Jihoon looked up at him, hesitating. "Another one that's no use to us." He responded.

  
"Can you just let me hear it?" Minghao questioned, beginning to feel sick inside. Jihoon exhaled a long, quiet sigh through his nose.

  
"I want to have this huge fade-out period at the end of it with you just humming a little bit." Jihoon admitted, and it was though he found the idea slightly embarrassing. He picked at his thumb nail, averting his gaze from Wonwoo's face. Just one of you humming, really softly. "Not a big, group thing like we always do to some degree."

  
"How big would you want it to be?" Jihoon looked up at Minghao at his question.

  
"A minute fifty." Jihoon automatically answered. Minghao realized to a certain degree Jihoon had it already all planned out in his head. "Got an idea for the film clip on that one too..."

  
"Yeah?"

  
Jihoon gave a pinched, awkward smile. Minghao wondered what he was so shy about. He was never usually like this. "Just a few shots right for the end chorus; one of you sitting on a couch in one of the old factories from the 40's and the 50's; like one of the cool old war-time era ones. One of the old munition factories. Have one of you sitting on a brown leather couch but filmed from about the ribs -" Jihoon gestured on his own body. "- Up. Wearing like a black turtleneck and a red traditional tartan suit, something like that. I don't know. Just an idea."

  
"Who'd be singing the bit you're thinking of?"

  
Jihoon shrugged. "I'm stil trying to hear it in my head." he said quietly. "See the face in my mind. I keep thinking of Wonwoo or Mingyu's voice, but I don't know whose face...and, you know...yeah..." He paused. "Maybe Vern...no, not Vernon." Suddenly, Jihoon sat up straighter in his chair. "No, no, no, you know what we need if we were to do it?" He said to Minghao, who shook his head.

  
"Our voices, but in the bit I'm thinking of - we need a woman." Jihoon said that as though it explained everything, but then backtracked. "Get a woman to lip-sync. Something like that. It's more of a British thing over a Kpop thing, but it'd work. Whose that..." Jihoon thought. "Whose that Chinese woman Mingyu used to know?"

  
Minghao shook his head. "She moved to England; she's a chemist, now." He said. Jihoon's shoulders slumped, but then something in him sparked.

  
"All we need is a aeroplane." All of a sudden, he and Minghao looked at each other and they burst out laughing. It was all ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.

  
"Have you ever seen a song and wished that that was ours?" Jihoon eventually remarked. Minghao nodded.

  
"All of the time." He said.

  
Minghao ignored three things as seven o clock came around and they were all having dinner. Wonwoo wasn't home and he wasn't picking up their calls and texts and they knew he was just ignoring them beacuse there was no way he'd have his phone turned off, he would be glued to it. Jisoo and Jeonghan sat nowhere near each other; Jeonghan was tired and pale-looking in-between Mingyu and Chan, and Jisoo was sitting beside him - Minghao - and was a storm to weather. Electricity seemed to crackle in the air around him, and because of it, for a mildy indistinct reason, Minghao kept a hand on Joshua's knee beneath the table. Soonyoung was overbright and focused on his food and he kept glancing up at Jihoon, who was in a deep conversation with Vernon about something, and was completely oblivious to Soonyoung's existence. Minghao wished Jihoon would stop ignoring Soonyoung; it was creating blacker and blacker damage by the day.

  
"Guys, we've got an idea for something." Jihoon jutted a thumb between he and Hansol. "When we say "Narcissist" what do you think?"

  
"The prick that presents the evening news." Jisoo answered. Everyone laughed except for Jeonghan, who trembled. No one noticed apart from Minghao. Jisoo refused to even look at Jeonghan. Minghao willed him not to but it wasn't working a bit.

  
"Anyone?" Jihoon tried again.

  
"Look, we know what you're trying to do but it's not really working." Chan said, grinning a bit. 

  
Jihoon nudged Vernon.

  
_"She came over and said hello_

  
_She was telling me that we share friends in Soho_

  
_She's a pain in the nose_

  
_And I'm a pain in Yves Saint Laurent clothes_

  
_And I don't want to tell her that her best mate looks like a walking overdose in a Versace coat."_

  
Vernon rapped out the first verse, and looked around expectantly.

  
"Well, that was shit." Jisoo commented, and everyone laughed again, including Vernon and Jihoon.

  
"Ok, ok, I gave it a go. Cross it off the list." From beneath the table, Jihoon produced a little white book.

  
"I wrote a heap of crap things this afternoon -" Jihoon began.

  
"- And we're working through the shit." Vernon finished. "Which one is next? Ok, yeah, that one. Ok, yeah, that one..." He cleared his throat.

  
"What's this one called?" Jun asked.

  
"What are we calling it?" Vernon checked with Jihoon.

  
Jihoon shrugged. "Five Ways With Bleach." Automatically sprang from Vernon's mouth barely a moment later with a sigh. Everyone blinked, and then Seokmin pointed to Soonyoung's bleached hair, who then pointed to Jeonghan's also bottle-blonde head. As everyone laughed again, Minghao felt a bit better inside. Maybe things were going to be alright. Wonwoo still wasn't home yet.

  
Vernon began to thump out a rhythm, his hands on the edge of the kitchen table when Jihoon suddenly stopped. "Don't bother, it's all shit." Jihoon remarked. No one said anything.

  
"No, it's not all shit." Seungcheol commented quite clearly. He gazed at Jihoon. "Say it." He said. Everyone in the room watched him, except for Jihoon who gazed down at the edge of the table. Jihoon's eyes lifted momentarily to meet Seungcheol's. "Anything you want; anything you like. Anything in your head now. Just tell...just say it."

  
All of a sudden, Vernon began to half rap,and half sing again. It was a smooth and desirable sound; it had something like a honesty about it. It reminded - perhaps strangely - of when he and Jun were messing about once and Jun's head - but before that hand - slipped beneath the curve of Minghao's hip to the heat that lay below when neither of them could remember where they were; East China or South Korea.

  
_"We're messing in a club_

  
_Dreaming of greater things_

  
_Confessing artificial love just for the sake of it_

  
_Saying it maybe don't mean a thing_

  
_But suffocate the bag man_

  
_Stop with misdemeanours and we'll make a carnival out of it_

  
_And I can find out your phone and address_

  
_You are a Zolaesque appreciation_

  
_And I'm just harbouring premonitions based on cosmological affliction, oh_

  
_Fuck your Mother's feelings_

  
_I've never been around to deny you heresay_

  
_We're not going to just decay_

  
_Endearments and life have always complicated us -"_

  
"I hope you fucking remember this!" Both Seungcheol and Jihoon barked; Mingyu pulled out his phone and started to film, and Minghao listened quietly, remembering all the things Hansol was saying in cae he couldn't remember than later on from a memory blank. But there was a catch to what was going on; all of them only heard sound and music and language, whereas Jisoo understood what they couldn't. Vernon was rambling on in English, not in Korean.

  
_"And I'd love it if you'd let me love you_

  
_And I'd love it if you'd let me love you_

  
_Yes, I'd love it if you'd let me love you_

  
_Yes, I'd love it if you'd let me love you_

  
_Yes, I'd love it if you'd let me love you -"_

  
"Vern, you're so good." Seokmin grinned, and all of them hummed in agreement and appreciation, but they didn't want to disturb Vernon from his line of through and rap.

  
_"And poison my dreamscape_

  
_I've got the depth right to bones_

  
_Carve it on a piece of wood_

  
_A pitch about demanding a longer life_

  
_Find your peace little girl_

  
_The poetry is in the streets_

  
_Goddess come and save us_

  
_Love and grief have always fulfilled us_

  
_And I'd love it if you'd let me love you_

  
_Yes, I'd love it if you'd let me love you_

  
_Yes, I'd love it if you'd let me love you_

  
_Yes, I'd love it if you'd let me love you -"_ Vernon broke the rhtyhm for a second and made a dum-beat on the table, a single for the chorus, which made them all cheer. Something uplifting and wholesome electrified the air; it made them all high. They were onto something, making something. By now Vernon wasn't just rapping; it was calling it out. Preaching it.

  
_"And I'd love it you'd let me in_

  
_And I'd love it if we found it_

  
_And I'd love it if we made it_

  
_And I'd love it if you'd let me love you_

  
_Tell me something I wouldn't do for you..."_ Vernon trailed off into a pause, but he threw his hand up into the air, signaling it wasn't yet over. After a few moments with his breathing heavy and his eyes alight, he started up again. He mumbled, just barely speaking, as though he was completely drained; a wound-up toy with no more tension. 

  
_"Emotional_

  
_Contamination_

  
_Acidic perfumes_

  
_And masturbation_

  
_Humane inhibition and_

  
_Pop rockets_

  
_Coffee spilling all over your photograph..."_ Suddenly, Vernon yelled; he roared out the lyrics, but, yet, even then, it was still music.

  
_"I moved on her like a bitch_

  
_It was my only hope of being ignited_

  
_Unrequited genetic socialite pools_

  
_Thank you Jisoo, so goddamn cool -"_ Vernon pointed at the man in question and winked.

  
_"But the date has been decided_

  
_And guess what? You're all invited_

  
_And we're famous_

  
_My last call was just massively infinite_

  
_And I'd love it if we got from here_

  
_And I'd love it if you'd let me love you_

  
_And I'd love it if you let me in_

  
_Tell me something I wouldn't do for you_

  
_And I'd love it if we made it -"_ Vernon leant back a bit, now standing up, and spread his arms out wide, tipping his head back.

  
_"And I'd love it if I could love you_

  
_And I'd love it if you'd let me in_

  
_And I'd love it if we made it."_ Suddenly, Vernon was a bit short of breath, but he was sitting back down at the table with a grin on his face. "What about that for a song that's not shit?" he quipped to Jihoon, before patting the top of his head, and Mingyu wrapped up filming.

  
"Fucking hell, Vernon." Jun said. Everything laughed. 

  
"Now what was everything you just said?" Both Seungkwan and Seokmin asked simultaneously. Vernon gazed up the table to Jisoo, his chin was buried in his fist; he was smiling a little bit, and his eyes was closed.

  
_"You are a Zolaesque appreciation_

  
_And I'm just harbouring premonitions based on cosmological affliction, oh_

  
_Fuck your Mother's feelings_

  
_I've never been around to deny you heresay,"_ Jisoo murmured the lyrics in Korean over English, partly for the benefit of the others, and he felt a warmth flood through his chest. A new wave of ooh's and gasps and stares and remarks - only the very best - directly to Vernon. "That is fucking amazing, you know that, right?" He opened his eyes and glowed directly in Vernon's direction. "If you'd ask me about it before, I would have said no, but, you know what? I've been wanting to hear something like that. I've been needing to hear something like that." Slowly, his gaze slid to Jeonghan's up the other end of the table, and Minghao felt something in him settle down. For weeks it had been half-conciously lurking about, but now it was dead. Minghao was so happy for it.

  
"It's not really a Kpop song, though, is it?" Jeonghan voiced, slightly hesitant; he was looking up the table to Jisoo, who obviously was in love with it, and Jeonghan very nearly bit his lip.

  
"Fuck Kpop, it's a collective load of pathetic, supficial shit." Vernon opined. "Whack the kettle on, will you?" he quipped to Wonwoo was was opening the fridge. All of a sudden, everyone stared at the kitchen. They hadn't head, or...noticed at all that Wonwoo had come in. But he was was dripping bloody wet, and...he looked absolutely eternal.

  
Wonwoo leant against the bit of wall beside the fridge.

  
 _"Dance around the lounge..."_ Wonwoo sang with a slightly hesitation, but it pooled away only in moments, while he was still singing the line.

  
_"Moon drowns the dark_

  
_Stick another thought in my head_

  
_Go to bed_

  
_And what am I doing here again? Let's believe it..._

  
_I didn't even see when I locked you out_

  
_But now I've got no time_

  
_Girl, I want to see you come and do it_

  
_I want to see you but it isn't right."_ As Wonwoo finished, his hands were already slipping into his pockets, and he ducked his head to the ground briefly, averting his gaze. Wonwoo briefly felt as though he had done something to humiliate himself, or, stark naked in front of everyone, he had retracted back on some promise he had made; not to...  
Vernon snapped his fingers quite violently, and pointed to Wonwoo. "We've got another fucking album!" He announced with a depth that had all of them set, running down a particular path with the speed and the gravity of a Ethiopian athlete.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jun accidentally kneels on his penis when he slips over in the bathroom, Minghao think's it's hysterical, the reason for Wonwoo's depression comes to light and no one knows what to think about it, Jihoon figures out how to publish the new tracks, Jeonghan doesn't listen to Seungcheol, Jeonghan sleeps with Jisoo, and Jisoo tries to keep it a secret that his Grandmother has bladder cancer and he's going back to America for a week to see her - a matter that doesn't go down well with Jeonghan, and Mingyu eavesdrop on Wonwoo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, brand new chapter! I actually had quite a nice time writing this chapter. There's quite a few memory sequences in this chapter, and I think I've written them beautifully enough. Tell me what you think

Minghao made the next day's entry in his little black book just before half past Midnight; which was already next day by then, but he couldn't help it. He could only do it when everyone else was asleep, or when he was by himself - extremely rarely.

  
Minghao looked back at yesterday's notes, and decided to copy them and then edit. Nothing much that day had happened except for the edited effects of precisely what had happened yesterday,

  
⦁ Jisoo and Jeonghan aren't fighting anymore (in fact, they've been pretty touchy but that's always been them)

  
⦁ Chan cleaned the bathroom and actually did a pretty good job but left a patch of water on the floor - 

  
Minghao had to break off, pressing his hand over his mouth and nose so he wouldn't emit a laugh or snort.

  
⦁ And when Jun went in to have a piss he slipped in it and -

  
Minghao had to close the book for a moment, nearly having hysterics.

  
⦁ He let out this yell when he went over, and when we asked it what it was - we thought he had hit his head - he said that he "knelt on his penis"

  
Minghao took a few moments to gather his wits before he even thought about continuing on.

  
⦁ Wonwoo's still a bit on the quiet side, but he's mostly back to normal. I had a look on his phone -

  
Of said matter, Minghao felt no guilt and all and neither did Mingyu, who had been his accomplice. It was hardly a breach of privacy when it was that situation.

  
⦁ And the reason was Jisoo. 

  
Minghao wondered if he should be writing that down.

  
⦁ Jisoo was flirting and carrying on and been a bit of a idiot. I said months ago in this thing that something's been going on; and it had been. But Jisoo kept winding Wonwoo up and then refusing him, going back to Seokmin or Jeonghan

  
Minghao leant his temple against the heel of his fist, and tied it up neatly. Minghao loved Jisoo; he wasn't wary at all or shameful at admitting that. He had known the other man for years, lived with him, worked with him. Everything. But, just sometimes, he did things like that...Jun had termed it the "inner fuckboy/inner arsehole". Sometimes Minghao got closer with Jun than the others. It was a equal matter between all of them of one or more driving the other nuts, so they'd crave the company an attention of only one of the others. Sometimes Minghao just wanted Jun; talk about home in China and family. Talk in Mandarin, do all the things they knew well. Minghao wondered sometimes if that was Jisoo's way of lashing out...but that wasn't it, was it? He just did his nut, like all of them did. Minghao forced himself to stop thinking of it. He thought with empathy that's how Wonwoo always got the way he did; it wasn't sulking or immaturity. Sometimes Wonwoo himself could be a bit of a cunt, but, then, the same trait went for all of them. And Wonwoo was the only one of them half the time who could even begin to work it out...

  
⦁ So that was that

  
⦁ Soonyoung and Jihoon haven't really changed much; if Jihoon is still cross with him, he hasn't shown it. But, then again, he's been tied up in his studio for hours every single day or with Bumzu, or we're doing performance practice

  
Minghao paused for a few moments, and turned on his phone, putting in his ear-phones, playing music loud enough for him to lose himself in, but not loud enough to echoe out and wake the others of whom he shared a room with.

  
⦁ Wonwoo - on top of the song he came out with last night - did another one. I heard him playing it out to Soonyoung earlier, who practically rugby tackled Jihoon in the hallway to come down and listen to it. Wonwoo got shy and wouldn't do it, and told Soonyoung he was been dumb. So Soonyoung told Seungcheol the lyrics, and then Seungcheol did - just for scope of the sound around the lyrics - because Wonwoo got back in his shell

  
⦁ Chan's went asleep in the car and Mingyu carried him inside; he's still passed out on the couch. But when I went to put a blanket over him he groggily looked at me for a second and said, "Fuck you." I think he hasn't been sleeping much lately. And it's not like the others notice anything

  
⦁ Seungkwan apologised to Vernon, and they went out for a bit after dinner, just to get out of the dorms, get some fresh air - as fresh as you get in Seoul, anyway. I think Seungkwan's been stirring up Seokmin a bit. 

  
⦁ Everyone's happier in short; all it took was one decent night.

  
Minghao thought for a few moments, and decided to not add anything else.

\--------------

The tempos were arranged, along with the vocals. Vernon's song from the other day was going to be a myriad to put into published order. They were all on the edge of releasing it as a single, or perhaps a teaser for the next album. Jihoon was thinking a lot. So much and so deeply sometimes that he didn't hear people speaking to him. Minghao went to speak to him only earlier that day to see Jihoon's eyes like those of a Roman statue; illuminate and cool, giving a remarkable impersonation of sight but really not seeing anything at all.

  
"The song's angry...." Jihoon had mumbled to himself, still inside his head. Minghao had sat down across from him but slightly to the left; they were in a staff room. They were sitting on two couches facing each other opposite with a coffee table in-between them. Minghao made the shift so if Jihoon suddenly came back around, Minghao wouldn't startle him by being directly in front of him. "But it's uplifting, especially at the chorus. Longing...this needs to be a song we all sing on but it won't work if we all sing on it. I can't fit Jeonghan in, no way...not Jisoo either. And what about Jun? Fuck it..."

  
"Jihoon?" Minghao attempted. All of a sudden, like a frightened deer, Jihoon holted violently and launched himself backagainst the couch's cushions. Jihoon grinned embarrassedly after a moment.

  
"Sorry, Hao." Jihoon apologised.

  
"If you want, I've got an idea? By the way, what are we actually calling that song?"

  
"Uh - Vern wants to call it...oh, shit." Jihoon chuckled, burying his face in his hands. "I can't fucking remember." He admitted. "What was it you were saying, Hao?"

  
"Because it's sort of -" Minghao couldn't find the right words to describe it. "How about it's a solo song? Vernon doing most of it but all of us come in as a back-up, like, on the really shouty parts?" Minghao grinned, not quite able to believe that he used the term "shouty". "You know what I mean."

  
"And what about the two that Wonwoo wrote?" Jihoon asked, now genuinely seeking Minghao's opinion now they were onto it.

  
"You asked Seungcheol?"

  
"You reckon I should?" Jihoon quipped. Minghao nodded.

  
"The first one -" Minghao struggled for a moment. Nothing had proper names.

  
"Do it." Jihoon said.

  
"Hm?"

  
"Wonwoo has called the first one "Do it" and the second "White"." Jihoon explained.

  
"Oh, right." Minghao nodded. He considered a remark for a moment before speaking. "Do you think we're changing?"

  
Jihoon nodded. "It's no bad thing." He murmured. "And we're all getting older. None of us can help that, either."

  
"Better go and work out Vern's song with Bumzu." Jihoon clapped his hands together slowly. He looked to the ground and looked up at Minghao, before giving a half-smile.

"There's one I really think you'd like. Come with me."

  
"What is it?" Minghao asked.

  
Jihoon looked over his shoulder as they got up. "Vern wrote another song." He laughed. All of the intensity he had had earlier within his being had vanished. "Guess what it's called?"

  
"What?"

  
"Chocolate."

\-------------

"So..." Seungcheol summed it up. "That yet un-named one of Vernon's, "Chocolate", "White" and "Do It." He and jeonghan were just talking while Bumzu and Jihoon did soundtracks of Vernon's voice against the current rhythm of the synth.

  
"Not like our other albums." Jeonghan commented. For once in their life, they were acting vaguely maturely.

  
"Lot different." Seungcheol agreed. 

  
"It's like Jihoon's hedging his bets against never making another song like...again." Jeonghan glanced up at the ceiling.

  
"Hm?" Seungcheol leant against the wall, hands in his pockets. A strange memory filled him up; not of Jeonghan but rather of Jisoo. Jisoo had once been sick, and when he had virtually passed out on the couch...Seungcheol himself had stayed up with him all night while Jisoo burned a dangerous fever of over forty degrees, washing Jisoo's eyelashes flutter as he dreamt. Seungcheoul couldn't quite help why he suddenly thought of it, but he just did.

  
"Never another song like Hit or Snapshoot." Jeonghan gave examples. Seungcheol grinned, suddenly getting it.

  
"I don't think it's like that, but that's pretty funny." Seungcheol told Jeonghan. He looked at him. "You and Soo alright? 'Cause you know we can't work when you two get like that."

  
Jeonghan ducked his head to the ground. "Yeah, I know." He mumbled, suddenly feeling shame creep across him in a hot flush, something dark and too much to handle. jeonghan didn't say anything. He felt as if someone suddenly was explaining the rules of a new television game to him: he was listening and nodding but actually thinking to himself, "I hope I understand this better once it starts." Another thing occured; in the back of his head a song began to play. Something instrument, and then a deep and warm southern voice filled up his sense. Some record it had been that Vernon and Jisoo had played when they were thinking about America. A America that wasn't Donald Trump and the Republican Party and the NRA and Ku Klux Klan; a America that had been home to them. Fulfillment to them for such a time.

  
Jeonghan hadn't been listening to Seungcheol as he had spoke at all, so, therefore, Jeonghan didn't understand when Seungcheol said, "You're alright with him going? It's really ok with you if he goes?"

  
Jeonghan twisted the tips of his hair into a knot that would later snarl. "I don't care at all."

  
A _boom! boom! boom!_ bass played up behind them in the recording studios, and Seungcheol burst out laughing. Jeonghan reflected momentarily it sounded alike Mingyu's laugh.

  
He smiled to himself.

  
That night Jeonghan lay in bed, his arm over Jisoo's chest. They had been talking and messing about and they had both nodded off together. It was harmless and there was something impersonal about it even though it was personal. Jeonghan wasn't trying to turn Jisoo on or reach down to part his legs so he could be in-between them and see Jisoo fully. When the other members whom Jisoo shared a room with glanced at him, Jeonghan glanced back a much shorter glance than they gave him; in that split second, he tried to get that point across. I'm not doing anything. The bed was actually to small - or, rather, too short - for Jisoo so Vernon, who miraculously had a bit of mechanical knowledge, got a couple of crates and screwed them to the bottom legs of the beechwood bed-frame so Jisoo could have the extra one foot extension for his legs. The crate therefore wasn't an ottoman, and it was secure, especially when also on the same day Vernon came home with some upholstered cushion to put over the crate, before it was studded into place. Jisoo was still very happy with Vernon doing that, eighteen months later. Nevertheless, it was a bit small, a bit narrow, like everyone else except - they always joked that it would be a good bed for Jihoon, with his small frame. Sometimes when Jeonghan - or one of the others - got in with Jisoo for a bit of a joke or just out of matters, they grew used to sleeping at a diagonal, their legs stacked over Jisoo's. 

  
Deep in the night the bedroom was silent except for the horn of a truck outside in the inner-city leaving for the river-side industrial estates. More and more, Jeonghan would lie awake thinking about certain things; things he couldn't always help. They just sprang to mind. Jihoon and his thick-boned, old-world Korean face, Wonwoo's fine-boned face and sharp eyes, like that of a world war two soldier. Jeonghan knew it wasn't very decent of him to think it, but if someone were to put Wonwoo in a Japanese Imperial Soldier's uniform, he'd look the part, alright. He thought about Seungcheol's constantly illuminate eyes, and Soonyoung's face - the fullness of it - that made him look like a boy still growing into a man's body.

  
Jeonghan thought of something. Who had it been? Vernon. It was Vernon. He, Mingyu, Seokmin, Soonyoung and Jisoo were laughing and been dicks in the sitting room and they started a "truth & dare" game. They all picked a truth for Vernon, who had told Jisoo that he thought his mouth had more colour in it than the cosmetic sticks his Mother and sister would buy when they sometimes traveled to Copenhagen or Dresdren on holiday and went shopping on the third floor of Magasin du Nord or Fonnesbech's. 

  
Jeonghan smiled to himself at the thought. Jisoo had just turned over. He had been lying on his front, the side of his face pillowed on his forearms on the pillow. His lips glistened slightly from where his mouth had been open in his sleep, and in the semi darkness Jeonghan gazed down at Jisoo's face. The room was barely dark, for all the moonlight and streetlight that got into the room through the edges of the blinds in the room. 

\----------------

"Tell them why you won't be here." Seungcheol said that next night at dinner. It was warm and they were eating with the sitting room, dining room, and kitchen windows open. Their was a cool breeze in the air, and the air conditioning was making worrying noises, so all of them had turned it off. Earlier, a range rover and a small truck down on the inner-city road outside had collided, and the night smelled of city smog, petrol, exhaust fumes, and the smell of cooked meat from the kitchen. Jisoo and Vernon had helped Mingyu pull off a Western-style roast lamb. They had bought three huge hunks of it and had whacked it into the oven. None of them were on diets, but they knew that next day, they'd probably be put onto one. Most as well enjoy it then.

  
"What was that?" Jisoo asked, tilting his head.

  
"Jisoo is going back to America for a week to visit his family because his Grandmother has developed a bladder condition." Said Jeonghan, who already. Jisoo blinked his cat-like eyes, gazing at him. They were sitting opposite each other at the table, and, now, Jeonghan wished it wasn't the case. Jisoo's eyes were burning a hole into him. Jisoo looked so thin in a green shirt and low-hanging waist of his denim jeans that were about two sizes too big for him but he still wore them nevertheless. Jeonghan remembered something that made him scowl momentarily, loathesome at himself for remembering it. Once, when he was just off being three-quarters cut because Jun - of all of them, bloody Jun - had got drink into him, Jeonghan had taken Jisoo's hand and pressed it against his lap. Jisoo had resisted instantly, which had dumb-found Jeonghan a bit in his drunken state; but it had much pleased their former manager, who had been watching through a slat in the laundry door, having got pushed into there by Minghao who had randomly invented that they had seen mouse excrement and needed some help to deal with the issue of potential new housemates. The irony was, there had been mouse shit behind the fucking washing machine. Jisoo and Jeonghan didn't even hear the clammer that the other members gave. None of them saw Minghao give them a side-long gaze and commit the scene to memory, and then even more unknown to all of them of how he would write it down in his little black book later on that evening.

  
Jeonghan went to sleep that evening without having a shower or brushing his teeth or changing out of his day clothes; he had just lain down in his room to have some privacy and some time to think and have some bitter thoughts, scroll through his phone. But he had just dropped off from the world. He had a bad dream that night of how Jisoo disappeared forever, and the hemline of that green shirt had come un-done and leaving thread and un-overlocked fabric raw as he fled, leaving Jeonghan by himself in their apartment tower and concerts and schedules.

\--------------

The deep-voiced murmur - well, that was just precisely it. It was barely more than a murmur, but it was beautiful. Mingyu hid away and listened to it, sinking down lower on the couch, giving the demeanour that he was happy by himself, to the audience of only Wonwoo in the kitchen, who he was giving all his attention to anyway. With his headphones in, it looked like he was a world away, but he wasn't. Mingyu was so firmly planted down to the earth, utterly grounded, by the sound he heard.

  
"Oh, oh..." Mingyu felt something in him collapse as he watched the way Mingyu's mouth shaped to the words; not precisely that move itself, but the thought that his brain gave him. Mingyu though about the mouth been wrapped around something, and that's how it looked -

  
_"Stick my number down the front your blouse_

  
_I'm observing from the stairwell_

  
_And I'm makin' sure I don't fall, fall_

  
_From the words you sighed when you were talking me to your best friend..."_

  
"IF YOU WRITE A GOOD SONG CAN YOU PLEASE JUST HAVE THE FUCKING DECENCY TO TELL US?!" Vernon roared suddenly, entering into the space with a slide in his socks on the floorboards, making Wonwoo jump and drop a glass.

  
Mingyu burst out laughing. He couldn't help it; it was just so ridiculous - all of it - that he just couldn't help himself.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minghao can't sleep and goes to rescue Jun who nearly falls out of bed, only to find him in the nuddy underneath the sheets of the piping hot night. Jun does something stupid and sneaks about the house, only to spy on two other members kissing in the sitting room, and then when Minghao drags him back, Jun turns on for Minghao. Wonwoo sings a new song for Mingyu over coffee, and we have a very sleepy Seungkwan the next morning; what could be better?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a song called Yellow Flicker Beat by New Zealand singer, Lorde. When it's slowed down it's a very good song, I can't stop listening to it

It took Minghao forty-five minutes to write it all down in his little black book, but he didn't mind the time it took. He listened to music very quietly through his headphones, the volume only on two percent, which, even with the road noise outside, was enough to seem just enough in the silence of their home. Earlier, Minghao had heard Wonwoo and Mingyu talking quietly as his music played. Then there had been silence for a long time; there still was. It had been six hours since Jisoo had left for America. It was a new matter, not having him around. Mainly due to how naked Jeonghan seemed, now virtually clinging to Seungcheol, who, honestly, more than anything, seemed quite happy to have Jeonghan tucked into his side. Minghao couldn't help thinking, _Give it time._

  
The night was uncomfortable and humid. Jun was sleeping naked just beneath a single sheet which was pushed down to his hips with one leg out and hanging over the side of his bed. Minghao got and carefully moved across the room to the man he shared the space with, and put his leg back up onto the bed. But Jun jerked and woke up, but he didn't make a sound which would wake anyone else. Jun stared at him owlishly in the darkness.

  
Despite been more covered up in a vest and pyjama pants, Minghao felt nude beneath Jun's gaze. "You were falling out of bed." Minghao remarked truthfully in Mandarin. Minghao crossed his arms as Jun sat up in the bed, and the sheet covered his abdomen and right leg. Shadows below there pooled and Minghao saw nothing, and he was momentarily reminded of Jeonghan; how effeminate people say he looked in his face, but none of them had seen the light trail of black hair that led down -

  
"Can't you sleep?" Jun quipped. Minghao shook his head. "Hop in -" Jun tore the sheets back and swore, suddenly remembering he was in the nuddy. Minghao had already turned gracefully on his heel and shielded his eyes, though he hadn't seen a thing apart from how a panel of silver light caught on Jun's thigh and chest and neck. All of a sudden, one of Jun's lines from "Fear" played in his head.

  
_Maeil naega neolo apado._

  
_Even if I am hurt by you everyday._

  
Minghao couldn't think of why that occurred to him. Things like that were too strange that late at night.

  
"Is something wrong?" Jun asked, having covered himself back up again. In the darkness, Minghao couldn't see him blushing a fierce red that way he was.

  
Minghao sighed. "Nothing's wrong." He answered.

  
"Well why are you not sleeping?"

  
"Because it's really hot and if we open the window because the air conditiing is broken it smells like inside the exhaust pipe of a Volkswagen?" Minghao suggested. Jun's teeth flashed in a grin. Minghao took notice of the fact - despite the fuck-up that had proceeded it - that Jun had been kind enough to invite him into his bed, even though it would end up as even more a fuck-up because of the summer heat. If Minghao got into bed with him - the night was too much for bodies to be in close proximity, radiating their own over-balanced heat. They'd give one another a fever, virtually. Suddenly, a huge and strong wind howled through the air outside. Both he and Jun looked in the direction of their bedroom window with a sudden positivity.

  
"The weather on the news - it's going to be cold tomorrow." Jun remarked hopefully. This time, Minghao smiled.

  
"Well, as we're both up." Jun quipped, before neatly sliding out beneath his covers, not worried anymore about flashing Minghao. He pulled on a pair of his jeans that were laying across the end of the bed, and he carefully opened their bedroom door, trying not to make any noise. Minghao stayed where he was with his arms crossed and looked at him. Jun looked back, as though it was completely obivous, but illustrated his point more but beckoning. Come on, Jun mouthed to Minghao. Minghao followed him as they crept out to the kitchen, and then up the hallway to the sitting room. But they stopped. All they could hear were the softest moans and breaths and the sounds of slickly wet lips as two people made out. A huge grin broke out across Jun's face; he surged forward to have a gwap at whoever it was and probably startle then, but Minghao pulled him back, gesturing urgently for silence. Minghao was sure it must be Wonwoo and Mingyu messing about; after all, he had heard them out there earlier and he hadn't heard them go back to their rooms. He wasn't going to tell Jun at all, but then he realized that Jun would compromise them by announcing it at breakfast, and then everyone would have them pinned as the Chinese creeps who crept around like psychopaths. Minghao gestured for them to go back to their rooms, and so they did.

  
As Minghao closed the door carefully to their bedroom, he looked over his shoulder at Jun whose gaze he felt on his back.

  
"What?" Minghao barely murmured, looking at Jun who was standing only a bit away from him, thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jeans. Minghao leant his back and hands against the door, already regretting what tomorrow morning would be like. Jun moved forward, and even before his mouth touched Minghao's, Minghao knew what he wanted. His gnawed-down nail fingertips touched against Jun's neck as their mouths collided togethet seamlessly in the darkness. Minghao felt Jun's strong throat rubbing against his much thinner neck, and as the older man's hands went down to his hips, and gripped at them tightly, it was so hard for Minghao to instigate anything in the reality let alone control it. Something about that moment - those series of moments - was too different for words. Minghao couldn't help ntohing, couldn't describe nothing. He was absolutely lost. His hands were pressed against his chest and Jun's chest, Jun holding him close to him with no space for Minghao pressed up against their bedroom door. 

  
_Oh my God_ , that one, clear, short thought rang through Minghao's head.

\----------------

"Where is everyone?" Seungcheol looked around a half empty house. "Wonwoo's not here, Gyu's not here, Hao and Jun aren't here -

  
Seungkwan came into the kitchen. "Where's Jisoo?" He mumbled, still half out of it. Vernon followed behind him with Jeonghan, and patted his shoulder.

  
"He's gone to America to see his sick grandma." Vernon reminded him gently. Seungcheol never minded the fact that Seungkwan and Vernon had a hard time getting on, but it made him warm inside to see something like that between. something very short but sweet all the same.

  
"Oh, yeah, that's right." Seungkwan blinked heavily, and Seungcheol thought he might tip over to the side.

  
"Alright, back to the original thing, where is everyone?" Seungcheol asked again. Vernon and Jeonghan shrugged, and Seungkwan barely opened the fridge without swaying directly into it.

  
"Who bought the watermelon?" Seungkwan asked sleeiply. it wasn't there last night

  
seungcheol frowned. what watermelon? he quipped. He went and had a look; Seungkwan pointed down to the half watermelon in the fridge. 

  
"He said it's a melon in the fridge, not the tits of Jesus Christ." Vernon remarked. Jeonghan laughed, and Seungkwan told Vernon he was rude, but he smiled a bit.

  
"Right, where the fuck is everyone and why do I have a melon in my fucking fridge?" Seungcheol crossed his arms.

  
"Oh, shut up Dad, and just put the kettle on." Jeonghan waved his hand in a gesture in Seungcheol's direction.

\---------------

"Do it for me?" Mingyu asked Wonwoo. They were sitting in a pair under huge Elm trees on a bench, morning peak hour traffic around them. Both of them were holding coffee's, and Wonwoo's head was very nearly tipping towards Mingyu's shoulder.

  
"Which one?" Wonwoo quipped, having a mouthful of drink.

  
"Anyone." Mingyu shrugged, smiling a bit.

  
"Why?" Wonwoo simply asked. He looked so cold.

  
"I know that you've got a whole world up there." Mingyu responded. Wonwoo let out a soft exhale through his nose, and he glanced at Mingyu momentarily, before averting his gaze listlessly to the ground.

  
_"Wait until you are high_

  
_We've not yet grown to be mature_

  
_All serotonin faded before your God_

  
_Get frowned upon by his grace and he'll make it_

  
_The luck runs out_

  
_The luck runs out_

  
_The luck runs out_

  
_The luck runs out_

  
_The luck runs out_

  
_Call all the fakers out_

  
_They're in their neo-haute couture_

  
_A thousand Insta heart outs_

  
_A hundreds nails chewed between teeth_

  
_And now she lets her ED in_

  
_Skin translucent like the gaze of the moon_

  
_The moon we give love to like family_

  
_While it illuminates the room_

  
_Dancing on the nights we tie up_

  
_Dancing around with big titles as well, oh woah_

  
_Even the fucked-up souls_

  
_They don't talk to no one else..."_ Wonwoo paused, trialing off. He seemed like a old man who was lost in fog. Sometimes he could, sometimes he couldn't. It was just that.

  
_"We live too long in mythologies_

  
_That we get told from screens_

  
_Too many superficially pretty_

  
_And they cannot give the goddamned effort to barely live_

  
_We're living in the ruins_

  
_Of politicians beyond our means_

  
_And you know_

  
_We're all crawling for someone else's blood."_ Wonwoo let go swiftly of a breath through his mouth, and Mingyu let the lyrics wash over him. It was a new sort of darkness, a sweet ache, some sort of revenge. Vernon singing about how if he made it, Wonwoo singing about toxic youth culture and global realism. 

  
_"I'm kinda over getting told to just let them walk away_

  
_That's there_

  
_So all the hearts got broken_

  
_Fake clandestine and wholesome, babe_

  
_And it's not our fault_

  
_And everyone's competing for a love that they won't receive_

  
_Because release and surrender never flow the same way_

  
_We live too long in mythologies_

  
_That we get told from screens_

  
_Too many superficially pretty_

  
_And they cannot give the goddamned effort to barely live_

  
_We're living in the ruins_

  
_Of politicians beyond our means_

  
_And you know_

  
_We're all crying for someone else's hands."_ Wonwoo stopped singing altogether. All the while, he had only been doing it quietly, anyhow. He looked up at the sky. "I wish it would just rain." He confessed to Mingyu. "I'm happy when it rains. I hate sunshine. I can't stand it. Everything looks better in the rain. Everything grows in the rain. I don't know why everyone says rain is bad weather. It's not. It's wonderful fucking weather. I wish it was here all of the time." The last sentence of Wonwoo's speech was bitter. Mingyu and Wonwoo both drank their coffee.

  
"I was talking to Jihoon yesterday, and I gave him something. And it..." Wonwoo shook his head. Mingyu tried to coax it out of him, but he only suceeded in pissing off Wonwoo.  
"Just fucking leave it." Wonwoo growled as Mingyu pushed him too far. "You fucking idiot."

  
Mingyu solely blamed Jisoo. Mingyu hoped distantly that Jisoo's Grandmother died; no good for the old lady, but at least it would bring him a bit of suffering. Mingyu's strong hand gripped his coffee cup tightly until he closed the stiff cardboard in half, making liquid shoot out over the knee of his jeans. Mingyu looked as Wonwoo took off his coat and a jumper; he slipped the coat back on but sponged the coffee out of Mingyu's jeans. As they walked back the few kilometers to their home, Mingyu heard Labyrinth play out of a restaurant doorway as they opened up to serve their breakfast customers, harrassed and their eyes pink-rimmed with lack of sleep and overwork. 

  
Mingyu glanced down at Wonwoo. In his chest was a warm flush of a memory of something that Wonwoo had once said; it was when Wonwoo had said he enjoyed looking up, as the shorter man, into Mingyu's eyes and face collectively. Wonwoo was cold and nervous, his skin tight and white and his head about to burst. Mingyu wanted to sing about that; write a song with a completely different theme but have that same aesthetic to it. The two of them were some pretty blur, moving through Seoul. It was just how Mingyu liked it.

\-------------

Minghao surveyed them cooly over the rim of his mug of tea. Of all the things they noticed, they didn't notice the fresh cartons of juice, milk and coke, the jars of herbs and spices and salt in the pantry with the loaf of bread for Vernon on the bench and the fruit in the bowl, or the bao buns beside the bread. They didn't notice the fresh pork, lamb, beef and vegetables in the basket in the pantry on the meat draw in the fridge. The new boxes of green and English breakfast tea by the kettle. No, they saw the watermelon. Usually Mingyu did things like the shopping, but Minghao sometimes did it instead; it was a task he didn't. It made him feel human. Whenever he was at a market, whether it be a American style supermarket of a classic East-Asian wet market, he always observed the poeple around them as having once been young like him, and they were all doing a chore which they had learned down to a fine art over time. When he had gone out, most of the shops were just opening up from their sleep overnight, little sacks of yesterdays rubbish out of the front, been collected by council workers in their huge, stinking trucks. There were potholes in the bichemond road, rutted from the pneumatics of city traffic. There was one restaurant nearby that was known for its ink-boiled squid, or so Jihoon had said. It was one of the places he and Vernon had gone out to one day. The fresh paint done by workers all around the restaurant was bubbling and sadly awful looking. The weather had been heavy and humid, making it difficult for the paint to dry. But that morning was different. It was cold and overcast, and Minghao was relieved of the break. About time it had arrived, he regarded blissfully.

  
Seungkwan had relatively woken up. Minghao looked at him for a few seconds. Seungkwan stared down into his mug as though it was a hypnotic abyss.

  
"Now you're home, where's Jun?" Seungcheol's question broke through Minghao's thoughts.

  
"God knows." Minghao replied, quirking an eyebrow. Seungcheol didn't look very impressed.

  
"Did you two go out together?"

  
"How do you think you are? Emperor Hirohito?" Minghao remarked.

  
"We have to get to the studios in half an hour, and so you need to get Jun -" Seungcheol was broken off by Jeonghan telling him to shut up, he was going to call Jun.  
"And you can stop having the shits on the world just because Josh's gone back to see his Nanna." Vernon quipped, standing over by the stove. Jeonghan's mouth came open indignantly, his phone pressed to his ear as it rang the dial tone.

  
"Jun?" Jeonghan said into the phone. "Where are you? Hm, what?" He looked over his shoulder down the hallway. Minghao suddenly burst out laughing, nearly pissing himself.  
Jun had snuck back in earlier and no one had noticed.

  
_**Seven hours earlier:** _

  
Minghao shredded the inside of his lower lip as he and Jun's noses and foreheads were pressed together, breathing the same air, which normally would have been a disgusting matter but their breaths both smelt like peppermint toothpast, so it was alright. Jun was teasing him, coaxing him out to be in his touch. Suddenly, Minghao just wanted to get to sleep even though he knew that would be impossible. "Hao-hao, what's holding you back?" Jun whispered to him in Mandarin, his lip brushing against Minghaos. Minghao's fingertips glided over Jun's chest, and one of Jun's hands pressed one of Minghao's hands to his skin, with kissing him chastely on the mouth, not caging him in or keeping him for too long.

  
"Guess; isn't it obvious?" Slipped from between Minghao's lips before he even had time or conciousness to think about it. A minute change flickered on Jun's face, but is was absolved because when he moved in again, Minghao didn't push him away. 

  
"We can't do it with everyone here." Minghao told Jun, his hands laying across Jun's chest lightly.

  
Jun hummed very, very softly, and with one more chaste kiss against Minghao's mouth, he stepped back and left it. Minghao was mildly surprised; but, then, right now, he was mildly surprised at everything.

  
"I just can't sleep." Minghao said with a certain admittance. Jun nodded.

  
"Me neither." He answered.

  
"Do you just wanna get outside?" Minghao suddenly felt claustrophobic in their bedroom. Jun nodded as well to that. Minghao felt a slight pity that their apartment block wasn't one with a courtyard garden in the centre, with the apartments built around it in four sides. Instead of using the elevator, Minghao and Jun nearly ran down the seven flights of stairs. Minghao felt as though spiritully, someone was calling up his name from from the bottom of them. "Minghao! Are you coming down?" Echoed throughout his conscience. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, they sat there; Jun just wearing a pair of jeans and Minghao in his singlet and pyjama trousers. Minghao suddenly felt a bit foolish. What was all of this worth anything? Whoever the couple was in the sitting room, surely they had heard the lock and click of the front door when Minghao and Jun rushed to get out, as though the space had been draining of oxygen for them to breathe and survive on. 

  
"Well, this was pointless." Minghao remarked to Jun, who grinned. 

  
"How about we go back up, get some clothes on, and we -"

  
"Even though it's the middle of the night?" Minghao commented with a touch of involuntary scornfulness.

  
"Yeah, whatever, neither of us can sleep, right?" Jun shrugged his shoulders dismissively.

  
Minghao sighed. "You know, these are the times I wished we lived somewhere rural." He rubbed his hands together, them hanging lankly in-between his knees from where they sat on the bottom of the stairs. "So there's just open space and fresh air where we can move; like in times like this. We can just get out and move -"

  
"If we lived rural I think Jihoon would choose to sleep in the barn and the straw to not be near Soonyoung." Jun said. Even though it was a joke, there was something underlying to that. Minghao laughed at it, apalled. 

  
"Hm." Minghao closed his eyes briefly. Jun touched the side of his temple.

  
"You just wanna stay down here?"

  
"Fuck no." Minghao's eyes opened. All of a sudden, he could smell Jun on a level that was extroadinairy; the scent of the washing powder from the fresh jeans, the smell of lynx deoderant. The smell of the Lynx didn't differ too much to the fresh smell of his hair. Without quiet meaning too, the bony and long fingers on inghao's left hand curled up around the back and side of Jun's neck, and Minghao pressed his nose and mouth to just above the Jun's temple, inhaling the smell. The smallest movement came across Minghao's mouth, upwardly, and his eyes slid effortlessly closed. Something about it was so familiar, that it felt almost animalistic. Jun's skin was warm to the touch, and it fulfilled something in Minghao. Jun was something functioning and alive; in this setting, at that moment, he was something different, something eternal. Minghao tipped Jun's head and kissed him, wanting him. Jun pulled away after a few moments, a far too shorter time to Minghao. As Minghao moved in closed to him again, Jun teased him without a appearance, making Minghao follow him as he lifted his chin slightly.

  
"I don't get you sometimes." Jun told Minghao, gazing at him without any room to take any rot.

  
"That's alright, you don't have to." Minghao moved up onto his knees over Jun and clasped both of his hands around Jun's throat, placing his mouth across his.

  
_**Present:** _

  
Minghao smirked to himself. Sucked in, he thought, but did say aloud because he knew it'd start world war three.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just Wonwoo and Soonyoung at this point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I officially won't be updating this work or others for a while because due to Coronavirus, all the libraries and studios where I do my work are closed! I don't have internet connection at my house - because I live in the mountains in a village! - and, so...yep, that's that

"So, we're still recording that yelling song of Vern's?" Soonyoung checked with Wonwoo, who nodded.

  
"Jihoon decided that Seungcheol, himself, Jun and Mingyu are going to sing on "Do It" with me." Wonwoo said. Soonyoung nodded, and put his hands into the pockets of his bone cords.

  
"I think it's a good song." Soonyoung quipped. "Got a nice oomph to it. Really sexy." He grinned as Wonwoo who smiled. "I can already see the choreography in my head."

  
"Do me the chorus?" Wonwoo asked, and stepped out of Soonyoung's way. They were in one of the staff rooms, and he leant against the edge of the table, holding a mug of coffee in both hands. 

  
"Can you sing it?" Soonyoung checked.


End file.
